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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27279784">Sew Deadly</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/umaspirateship/pseuds/umaspirateship'>umaspirateship</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Descendants (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abusive Parents, Alternate Universe, F/F, Fabric Shop Owner!Evie, Murder Mystery, Private Investigator!Audrey, Rivals to Lovers, Romance, ben's a cop i don't like him that much, cozy mystery, evie's mom is homophobic, just two dumb genius gays solving a murder together</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:33:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,791</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27279784</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/umaspirateship/pseuds/umaspirateship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Snow White", lead actress from the hit Disney series Ascendants, is murdered in the small town of Auradon, Washington.<br/>When Evie suddenly finds herself in the middle of the murder investigation, she decides to investigate the murder herself. This ends up pissing off Audrey, the local private investigator, who is 90% concerned about her new competition and 10% concerned about Evie's well-being. Well maybe 20% concerned. Well. Maybe Evie should stop endangering herself so much, if she didn't want Audrey to end up caring about her!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Evie/Audrey Rose (Disney)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sew Deadly</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Evie let the paintbrush drift over the wall in close, casual strokes. There was something so satisfying about watching the last bits of white fade away, the soft blue of ocean boulevard paint taking its place. Like watching the fraying threads of the fabric being tucked into a seam, or filling out the last line of numbers in her budgeting binder. Doug was always on her about upgrading to excel, but Evie liked watching the papers pile up as her business gained more customers. The sun was beginning to shine in through the front window, having finally cleared the tops of the stores, and it sparkled satisfyingly through the stained glass she’d installed above the door.</p><p>Someone knocked, and Evie set down her paintbrush in a glass of water and snapped her paint tin closed.</p><p>“I brought over some wine,” said Mal when she’d finally gotten the door open.</p><p>“You didn’t come at a great time,” said Evie, although she was smiling and already walking to get the glasses she had tucked away behind the counter. “I had paint all over my hands.”</p><p>“No you didn’t,” Mal said. “When I paint, I get paint on my hands, clothes, ceiling, whatever. When you paint, you get paint on the paintbrush, and then all of that paint seems to magically end up where you intend to put it.”</p><p>“But which one of us has their art showing in a gallery in New York this month?”</p><p>“Oh, don’t remind me,” Mal shook her head, jumped up on the table Evie had set out for cutting fabric and took a deep drink from her glass. “Are you sure you don’t need help with the store opening? I’m sure the curators would buy the old sick routine we had planned out in high school.”</p><p>“Don’t kid, Mal. You’re as excited about this as we are. I think Jay has already bought the suit he’ll wear when your art gets picked up for its first prestigious award.”</p><p>“You have to enter art into contests to win awards, or at least have someone else enter them,” said Mal, rolling her eyes.</p><p>“And you have, haven’t you?”</p><p>“Well-“</p><p>“Then you don’t have anything to worry about. I can sew your dress if you want, although if you want it to coordinate with someone you need to let me know in advance so I can save extra fabric.”</p><p>“EVIE! I haven’t even won anything yet!”</p><p>“Well then we’ll wear our fancy suits around my new apartment when you get back from the gallery show. In New York! Oh, I’m so jealous. If I didn’t own my own fabric shop now…”</p><p>“I’d see you on the news for trying to shoplift tons of fabric from the garment district after you inevitably ran out of money?”</p><p>“I can neither confirm nor deny.”</p><p>“Well, you can’t get into much trouble here, I suppose,” said Mal. “And if you’re sure you have the grand opening in hand…”</p><p>“I’m sure.”</p><p>“Okay, okay, I’ll stop bothering you about it. I just feel bad that none of us are here to celebrate with you!”</p><p>“You all celebrated with me when my payment for the shop finally went through, now the only thing left is the actual hard work of running the place. I’ll call Carlos if the ceiling falls down around my head, don’t worry.”</p><p>“Carlos will kill you if you make him leave the ‘What’s New in Tech’ Convention” Mal waggled her fingers in air quotes, and continued, “I’m pretty sure it’s the only large group social event he enjoys, the nerd.” She shook her head affectionately.</p><p>“Then I’ll call Jay. I’m sure he’ll be perfectly happy to leave his tour of the Southwest and come up here to rainy Washington. Maybe his band can book a gig in the local coffee shop.”</p><p>“Hey! You can’t do sarcasm, that’s my thing. You’re supposed to be, like, nice and shit. I need standards to look up to.”</p><p>“Sorry, Mal. Guess you’ll have to be a delinquent forever.”</p><p>“To delinquency, then!” Mal lifted her glass up and clinked it against Evie’s. “But seriously, you better not get into any trouble while I’m gone.”</p><p>--------</p><p>To be fair to Evie, she certainly hadn’t Intended to be swept up in an elaborate murder mystery, police investigation, and intense rivalry with the local PI on the opening weekend of her new fabric shop. On the realty websites, Auradon was rated as a pretty safe place to live. It was one of those white suburban towns you saw on the Hallmark channel. Got snow in the winter at convenient times. Had a really beautiful Christmas tree lighting in the town square every winter and an unreasonably high bakery per capita compared to anywhere else Evie had lived. Its public schools were rated highly, and they’d never ended up on the national news because a teacher accidentally set herself on fire or because a principal publicly humiliated students instead of giving detention and incited mass community protests. Sometimes students even left nice comments on their teacher’s ratemyteacher profiles. If you went to the public park, you could stop by any number of birthday parties, and someone was bound to offer you a lemonade and ask how you were doing. There were benches you could sit on and feed the ducks, and they didn’t even have the hostile architecture bars cutting across the middle.</p><p>It was meant to be a comfortable place for Evie to open up a shop, have a little bit more time to sew and relax, and finally be able to escape the big city life that had been hounding her steps since she was born. Her mother had been a fantastic actress, known for her ruthless sabotage and doing anything to get the part. Evie had first met Mal at one of her mom’s acting parties, and they’d hid under the buffet table while their moms had gotten drunk on expensive alcohol. Her mom had wanted her to be an actor too, but Evie…</p><p>Evie had just wanted to get away. To have real friends. To fall in love and be able to discover things about each other and going on cute dates and eat too sweet pastries and drink bad coffee together and have a good time anyway. She just wanted to tuck the bad parts of her life away, under the seam of this nice little town and her newfound anonymity.</p><p>The woman who’d been murdered had been known as “Snow White” for her role in the ridiculously popular Disney channel movie series that followed the kids of heroes. “Snow” was gorgeous, kind, and charismatic. Her face was on nearly every piece of merch for the show, and as the series had gone on the director focused on little aside from “Snow’s” personal character development. The last movie had been released theatrically, while Evie had still been living with her mom. It was barely five years ago, now, but it felt like ages. Evie’s mom had dragged her along to the red-carpet premiere.</p><p>--------</p><p>“I don’t like her, dear, but you have to make connections if you want to succeed in this business. Your face isn’t doing you any favors, and your acting skills are rudimentary at best, but did they cast Snow because she knew how to convincingly play a princess burdened with trauma after being raised by parents who hated each other? No, she can’t act her way out of a paper bag. But she’s dated half of Hollywood’s top teen heartthrobs list and her mother introduced her to the director when she was eight. Anyone can be charming when they’re eight.” Her mother paused from where she’d been applying Evie’s makeup. “No, the other highlighter. We need something stronger if you’re going to be in front of the camera, sweetie. Photographers are brutal, and bad press would ruin what we’ve worked for.”</p><p>Evie’s mother had continued her tirade against Evie’s looks, talent, career choices, and potential mother-ruining that she might do at the premiere. She was 16 and had already starred in a Disney show of her own, although it had been canceled after one season when the fantasy trope lost popularity. She hated acting, her mother, and going to these stupid red-carpet premieres. She’d almost rather be working in Jay’s dad’s shitty junk shop. At least then she could admire the pretty vintage dresses in the window. Evie’s red-carpet dresses always rode up awkwardly and looked like they belonged on a 40-year-old.</p><p>This is all to say that Evie rather thought she should be forgiven for making out with the director’s seventeen-year-old daughter behind the popcorn machine during the second act of the film.</p><p>Isn’t that how people moved up in the acting world, Evie had cackled helplessly to herself as her mother screamed at her in front of the entire assembled press and attendees. By dating Hollywood’s who’s who and getting close to directors. After all, her acting and her looks weren’t worth anything, anyway. Snow, who had just turned twenty-three in time for the airing of the fourth movie, had tried to step in.</p><p>It was then that Evie had found out that it had been Snow to tell her mother. She’s seen them behind the popcorn machine while she’d been on her way to the bathroom, and joked about it offhandedly when Evie’s mom had asked her where she was. Snow was just a "concerned citizen" who wanted to poke fun at the little girl who snuck out for a little make-out session. And now she was the "charitable older sister" who wanted to stand up for Evie in front of her homophobic mother.</p><p>Evie’s mother was trashed in the press.</p><p>Evie’s mother was livid.</p><p>Evie’s mother was cooking something up in the kitchen and had stopped going out for gigs.</p><p>And suddenly, everyone had forgotten about her little scandal at the red-carpet premiere of the last Ascendants movie, and instead, she became Evie, the daughter of the woman who tried to poison Snow White.</p><p>Snow White had lived, her mother had gone to prison, and Evie had moved out by the time her mother’s trial had finally wrapped up.</p><p>And now it was five years later and Snow White was dead.</p><p>Dead as a doorknob.</p><p>As a fish in the farmer market’s seafood stall.</p><p>She’d both kicked the bucket and given up the ghost.</p><p>Snow White had been murdered in her hotel room in the little Pacific Northwest town of Auradon, Washington. She’d been murdered a five-minute walk from Evie’s apartment and a ten-minute drive from Evie’s store. She’d passed on, she’d entered her eternal sleep, she’d started pushing up daisies.</p><p>Goddess, Evie hoped she wouldn’t have to call Carlos for help.</p>
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